"Hold the ship against attack!" I shouted to Frey, handing him the guard's sword.
As I rushed into the cabin, I glimpsed him standing with the sword in hand, but he was swaying drunkenly. I knew he could not hold off an attack for long, and I dragged on the flying togs I had discarded before climbing to Midgard plateau. The instant I strapped the oxygen tank to my shoulders, I heard Freya's terrified scream.
"Jarl Keith, Frey is swooning, and Jotuns are coming!" I snatched a super-automatic from the supply compartment and dashed outside. The Moon slipped from behind the clouds, shining full on the Jotuns who were rushing up to attack. Horned helmet on his head, sword in hand and the golden mustache writhing above his savage lips, Loki was leading two fierce Jotun soldiers. But Freya was struggling with Frey's almost inert weight. The blade had slipped from his nerveless grasp.
"Get him into the rear of the ship and close the door!" I shouted to the woman.
The Jotun archer drew back the string of his bow to strike me down with a heavy arrow. I picked him off with a single snipe-shot. The pikeman raised his javelin, dropped it as a slug blasted away his skull. Before I could wheel on Loki and end the menace to the Aesir, Freya called to me in despair.
"Jarl Keith, I cannot get him into the ship! He has swooned."
I triggered a shot at Loki, saw him duck swiftly out of the bullet's path. Then I had no more time to fight. I hurled the gun and caught him on the right shoulder. The sword spun from his grip as he staggered back.
Frantically I ran to the cabin door and dragged Frey inside. When I pointed quickly, Freya opened the door of the freight hold while I carried him in and laid him down on the floor. I wrapped him in blankets and told Freya to do the same. It would be warmer and more easy to breathe than in the cabin, for the ship was electrically warmed and synthetically oxygenated. But the smashed window of the cabin would leak its own air and warmth, and chill and thin the air of the hold, despite the tightness of the door I closed on them as I sprang back into the pilot room.
Jotun reinforcements were charging up as I opened the jets wide and blasted off. The plane soared into the freezing air, and I was glad I had taken time to don my flying clothes and oxygen tank. Even through my wired suit, I could feel the numbing chill, and my lungs were laboring under the lessened pressure.
Far below, I saw the glimmering river through the closing mist. The tall masts of Jotun ships looked like dowels. I twisted the firing wheel to top speed, and we rose so steeply that I thought the ship would slip into a tailspin. But it righted and zoomed higher, rocketing above the misty river and the dark, fog-shrouded forests beyond. When I looked back, the ominous citadel of Jotunheim was alive with moving torches. I could well imagine the blazing anger that Loki would vent upon the Jotuns because of our escape.
"We're clear!" I thought exultantly. "Maybe by now Loki has more respect for outland science."
I set the robot controls and searched through the spare-parts compartment for a new window. Fixing the smashed port was only a few moments' work. Then I opened the oxygen nozzles wide and let the cabin fill with fresh, invigorating air and warmth. I removed my flying togs and opened the freight hold door. Freya and I helped Frey into the cabin, put him in a seat. His blurred eyes looked less helpless, and he sat unsteadily but without collapsing.
"Are you all right?" I asked anxiously.
He nodded weakly.
"Truly you outlanders have strange powers," he mumbled. "We must warn Odin of the attack…"
"Loki means to use those devilish storm-cones to overcome the Aesir," I said. "We've got to devise some defense against that weapon."
I went back to the controls and guided the plane above Midgard's black hills. Freya's frantic voice called to me over the roar of the rocket motor.
"Jarl Keith, Frey has fallen!"
I whipped around. He was lying on the floor, twitching. Then I saw something that horrified me. His body was covered with green spray which the Midgard snake had spat upon him. Around his bandaged wounds, his flesh was turning black!
"The venom has entered his wounds!" I cried.
I had never thought that a snake the size of Iormungandr could be poisonous. No Earthly serpent larger than nine or ten feet possesses venom. But I had forgotten that Loki's science had developed it to its huge size.
Frey opened his fluttering eyes and stared dully at us. His lips moved feebly.
"I've fought my last fight… The poison of the Midgard snake has slain me…"
"Try to fight that venom!" I urged hoarsely.
"The Norns have spun out my long life-thread at last—" he mumbled. "I would that I could see Gerda before I pass. But Wyrd ordains otherwise." His blearing eyes grew strangely brilliant and clear for an instant. "Jarl Keith, you have been a worthy comrade. I leave my kinswoman in your care, for I know you love her dearly. Try to save her in the day that approaches — the day of Ragnarok."
Freya sobbed and the Aesir's eyes dilated, as though looking past us at some gigantic, terrifying spectacle.
"I see Loki riding in fire and storm to destroy Asgard — I see the Aesir dying — I see the whole land—"
His eyes closed abruptly, and his jaw sagged as his life departed.
Freya turned a quivering, tear-stained face toward me as the plane thundered northward through the night.
"Jarl Keith, he's dead. My kinsman was so great among the Aesir and has lived so long. Now he's dead."
I felt a hard lump in my throat. Handsome, steadfast Frey had been my first friend among the Aesir.
"We cannot help him now, Freya," I said. "Damn Loki and his fiendish schemes!"
"Aye," said Freya bitterly. "My kinsman is but the first of many Aesir who must fall because the arch-traitor has been loosed."
"And that happened only because I brought the rune key into Asgard," I said in heavy self-reproach. "I have been an evil guest to the Aesir, Freya."
She clasped my hand. "Don't think thus, Jarl Keith! It is not your fault that Loki's powers brought you and the fateful rune key here. Sooner or later, he would have accomplished it somehow. All my people always feared that."
Dawn was paling in the sky. During the last half-hour we had flown over most of the length of Midgard. Against the rose-flushed sky a few miles north of us stood the high, lofty little island of Asgard, with its eyrie of gray castles amid which Valhalla loomed mountainously. Already the flying arch of Bifrost Bridge was glittering as the short polar spring night ended,
"We'll have to land on the field this side of the bridge," I mused. "There's not room enough to land safely in Asgard."
I brought the plane down safely on the bare plain of the mainland promontory. As we emerged from it, over Bifrost Bridge from Asgard a long stream of Aesir warriors came galloping. At their head rode a yellow-haired, yellow-bearded giant, his great hammer swinging.
"Thor has seen us and he comes!" Freya exclaimed.
In a few moments, Thor and the Aesir warriors reached us. The horsemen seemed awed by sight of my flying craft.
"Jarl Keith and Freya!" cried the Hammerer, his small eyes joyful as he quickly recognized us. "But where is Frey?"
"Dead," I said bitterly. "Slain in Jotunheim by the poison of the Midgard snake."
Thor looked into the plane at the dead figure, as though unable to believe his ears. He whispered blankly:
"Frey, who has ridden and sailed by my side these many centuries — dead!" Wild rage crimsoned his face and he shook the great hammer Miolnir aloft, "Loki's work! Aye, These are the first fruits of that devil's freedom!"
"Loki prepares to lead the Jotuns upon Asgard," I warned him, "Tomorrow that host of dread evil comes against us, Thor."
"Good! The sooner the better!" He turned to his Aesir warriors, who were still staring awedly at the plane. "Take the lord Frey and place him on a shield. He goes home to Asgard as a warrior should!"